Singer Robin Gibb has reportedly been diagnosed with liver cancer. The Bee Gees co-founder, who has cancelled several recent appearances due to ill health, was briefly hospitalised last week and is now recovering at home.

Gibb's cancer was identified earlier this year, the Sunday Mirror reports, following "terrible" abdominal pains this spring. He has since made several hospital visits, including a four-day stay last month and on 15 November, when an ambulance was called to his home in Thame, Oxfordshire. The singer's 91-year-old mother recently flew in from her home in Miami, bringing forward a planned visit at Christmas. And Robin's brother, Barry, made a "surprise" appearance last week.

In recent photographs, Gibb looks frail. His condition is "not good", a close family friend told the Sunday Mirror, and Gibb's wife, a druid priestess, has suggested alternative therapies. "This incredible Indian tribe introduced Robin and I to something called 'spider medicine,'" Dwina Murphy-Gibb told Sky Arts. "[It] apparently contains properties that can help you get well from certain untreatable illnesses."

Gibb was forced to cancel two appearances last month, including the Remembrance Sunday edition of BBC's Songs of Praise. A week later, he had to cancel a meeting with David Cameron, part of the promotion for his new Poppy Appeal single – a version of I've Gotta Get a Message to You, recorded with the Soldiers. But Gibb says he is still committed to writing the Titanic Requiem, a project he has undertaken with his son, honouring the disaster's forthcoming 100th anniversary.